REVIEW: “Excision” (2012)

Even the poster is creepy.

SYNOPSIS: High school oddball Pauline (normally gorgeous Annalynne McCord, nearly unrecognizable here) believes she is destined for greatness as a surgeon. She works toward this goal by reading medical texts, sending away for dissection kits – and practicing on roadkill.

She’s awkward, pimpled, scraggly-haired, and given to wildly inappropriate behavior and comments. So Pauline’s misunderstood by everyone at school, the family priest (John Waters – let that sink in: John Fucking Waters plays a priest), and her entire family, with the exception of younger sister Grace (Modern Family‘s Ariel Winter). Grace is the favored daughter – personable, sweet, outgoing, pretty, and all her sister is not – but suffers from steadily advancing cystic fibrosis.

REVIEW: “An American Werewolf in Paris” (1997)

DEFINITELY should have taken the bus.

SYNOPSIS: The daughter of the werewolf from John Landis’ (far superior) 1981 film “An American Werewolf in London” is alive and living in Paris where her mother (Isabelle Constantini here; played by Jenny Agutter in the first film) and stepfather are trying to overcome her lycanthropic disease. A trio of American tourists on a thrill seeking trip around Europe manage to stop her from plunging to her death from the top of the Eiffel tower. They’re then embroiled in a horrific but ostensibly hilarious plot involving a secret society of werewolves based in the city, and a drug which allows werewolves to change at any time.

REVIEW: “Shutter” (Original 2004 Thai version)

“Honey, I think the dog’s on the bed again OH SWEET FUCKING CHRIST”

YEAR OF RELEASE: 2004
STUDIO: Panasia / Tartan Video
MPAA RATING: NR
LENGTH: 97 mins
DVD? (Y/N): Y
BLU-RAY? (Y/N): N
NETFLIX? (Y/N): Y (DVD)
STREAMING/DIGITAL? (Y/N):  Y (Amazon both for rent and purchase)

EFFECTS (1-5): 4
SCORE (1-5): 3
OVERALL (1-5): 4

SYNOPSIS: A group of young people celebrate the upcoming wedding of one of their friends with much heavy drinking. On the drive home, a photographer and his girlfriend hit a woman with their car, leaving her prostrate and motionless on the road – then panic and flee the scene. Guilt consumes the couple after their choice, and they soon notice strange ghostly shapes – some resembling faces – creeping into the photographer’s negatives and prints. When their friends begin dying under mysterious circumstances, they soon realize they may be haunted by more than merely memories.

REVIEW: “Carnival of Souls” (1962)

Try to chill at a creepy abandoned amusement park, and THIS happens. Every. Damned. Time.

YEAR OF RELEASE: 1962
STUDIO: Rhino
MPAA RATING: NR
LENGTH: 78 mins
DVD? (Y/N): Y
BLU-RAY? (Y/N): N
NETFLIX? (Y/N): Y (DVD)
STREAMING/DIGITAL? (Y/N):  Y (Netflix and Amazon; also available in the public domain as a download)

EFFECTS (1-5): 3
SCORE (1-5): 3
OVERALL (1-5): 3

SYNOPSIS: After a traumatic accident of which she is the sole survivor, Mary Henry (Hilligoss), an agnostic woman, takes a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she is haunted by a bizarre apparition. It compels her to visit an abandoned lakeside pavilion, beginning an eerie and macabre chain of events. This nearly-forgotten, microscopically-budgeted film has achieved cult – almost mythic – status after it was run on late-night television for years in the 70’s and 80’s.

REVIEW: “World War Z” by Max Brooks (2006)

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2006
PUBLISHER: Three Rivers Press (imprint of Crown Publishing Group, division of Random House, Inc.)
LENGTH: 342 pages (paperback edition)
HARDCOVER? (Y/N): Y
PAPERBACK? (Y/N): Y
KINDLE? (Y/N): Y
AUDIOBOOK? (Y/N):  Y (abridged CD)
RATING (1-5): 4

SYNOPSIS: This is a survivors’ story, told from the perspective of an unofficial chronicler of the recent zombie apocalypse, using interviews with key figures from a conflict that nearly spelled the end of humanity. Their first-person accounts serve to flesh out the scope and horror of the pandemic, which wiped out a vast cross-section of the human race. Although, in true zombie fashion “wiped out” is a misnomer; get bitten, or partially eaten, and you die… but you then reanimate as a flesh-craving walking corpse. A vaguely supernatural explanation is hinted at, but never confirmed or elaborated upon.